411 Politics Fact or Fiction: Week 125

Posted by Brandon Crow on 04.08.2009

Will someone make a serious attempt at assassinating President Obama? What the hell is wrong with Angie Harmon? Should we legalize marijuana? Which faction of the Republican Party will finally win the struggle and lead the party again?

Welcome to Week 125 of Politics Fact or Fiction. It's fitting that it is 4/8 because it was exactly four years ago today that I posted my first "Murmur of Crow" column here. This is the final column that I will moderate. Next week, the old Bossman of 411 Politics, Jason Easley, himself a former moderator of F or F, returns for one week only—yes, wrestling fans, this is a one-shot deal—and serve as moderator. The two participants will be Ryan Latimer and yours truly. The three former moderators of F or F will stage one last, grand hoorah to send Crow riding off into the sunset. Sob…wipe tear…

The new moderator of F or F will be Mark Radulich, long-time columnist for the politics zone. He will debut the week of April 20th. Mark is looking for eager readers who want to participate and take their shot at glory!

Please email Mark Radulich if you wish to participate in the upcoming weeks of Politics Fact or Fiction. Here's his email address: [e-mail]. Mark will be more than happy to schedule you in.

Ok, for Crow's final week…two more of my favorite participants of all time, Dr. Brett Leggett and Dino Parenti. I'm sure these two will give me a fitting send off.

And now, for the last time…

…Ding! Ding!

1. Secret Service reports confirm that President Barack Obama has already received more death threats in his first seventy day than many presidents in their entire presidency. This does not surprise you in the least; in fact, you believe that someone will take a shot at Obama during his presidency.

Brett Leggett: FACT. Although once rare events, presidential assassination attempts are as common and American as apple pie. In fact, every President since Richard Nixon has had an attempt on his life. When it comes to assassinations, we only pay attention to the near-misses and of course, the successful ones. Reagan was actually shot and Ford had two well-publicized attempts that came remarkably close.

The would-be assassins of Nixon, Carter, Bush I, Clinton, and W. missed the mark by a wider margin than the others. Some tried crashing planes into the White House or shooting into a crowd they thought included the president. I think one even tried a bomb or grenade. These guys were obviously a few fries short of a happy meal, but they were all fairly close to the president or his family when their attempts were foiled.

Simply by virtue of the fact that Obama is president, it is highly likely someone will give it a shot. As an African American, Obama moves into the "high risk" category, a fact millions of African Americans were painfully aware of and anxious about during the campaign. So unfortunately, the number of death threats aimed at Obama doesn't surprise me.

Dino Parenti: FACT. And it's not necessarily due to his race so much as is the fact that, well, he's "The Man," and there are always those around who, regardless of party affiliation, are insane, insecure or angry enough to take a shot at someone in a position of power—especially the highest power in the land. Some might even find it a challenge just to get a shot anywhere near him simply because Obama is probably the most protected president in our history and they'd wear it as a badge of honor and mark of their prowess just to get past that gauntlet and exploit a gap in security. I sincerely hope it never even gets to that point, but it sadly would not be surprising.

1 for 1. Personally, I'm a little surprised that both guys seemingly downplayed Obama's race as an incentive for assassination attempts. I think there are plenty of crazies (and just plain, hateful, ignorant people) who can't wait to take a shot at him due to his skin color, and his "socialist Muslimism."

2. Actress Angie Harmon told FOX News in an interview last week that "the greatest thing about the Republican Party is the understanding, we don't point fingers and we have class...you can sit down with [Democrats] and have a 15 minute conversation and if you're not believing everything they say and buying into what they're selling, it is like you're some dumb hick who doesn't deserve to live here anymore. But [Republicans believe] I want to know what you know, you want to know what I know, okay great let's go have a beer after work, we're still friends." Angie Harmon is right.

Brett Leggett: FICTION. I can't recall the name offhand, but there's a Woody Allen film where an ardent Republican is diagnosed with a brain tumor. The tumor is resected and the guy turns into a liberal (he's healed!). Now, I do have some rational-thinking conservative friends who I need to exempt from this comment, but I do feel that there is a higher prevalence of pathology or mental illness within the Republican Party. W., Darth Vader, Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachmann, Michael Steele, John Boehner, Ann Coulter, Larry Craig, Ted Stevens, Ted Haggard, Mark Foley, Bill O'Reilly... where do they find these people? Can we honestly call these guys "understanding" with a straight face? Can we even call some of them "sane?" Yes, we've got a few interesting characters in our party, but the Dems would be hard-pressed to come up with such a colorful line-up.

Like Angie Harmon, there are conservatives who reside in a place of denial, delusion, and fear, who put party above country, equate dissenting opinion with treason, insist that all liberals are godless, believe non-Christians will burn in hell, think going out for Chinese food is being "diverse," and generally see the world in a simplistic binary scheme where people and things are either "good or evil" and "with us or against us." I offer the entire record of the Bush administration as evidence.

And on the Congressional side during the Hastert/Frist years, whose finger was always on the "nuclear button" when it came to changing filibuster rules and quashing Democratic dissent? Let's take a look at the breakdown of Republican votes for passage of the recent stimulus package: 177-0. Not a single Republican vote of support. Meanwhile, 11 Dems voted against it. The GOP is far better at intimidating folks into following marching orders. So if we're going to generalize, let's get it straight. Understanding and tolerance of opposing views: not exactly the banner the GOP is carrying these days.

Dino Parenti: FICTION. Well, there's a lot of truth in what she says actually, but it's not for the reasons she'd like to believe. Her first misinterpretation is the "we don't point fingers" line. I didn't know pachyderms had actionable digits, but the symbol of the Republican party seems to have five index fingers on each hand pointing accusingly at all non-believers. That said, the fifteen minute part in determining "hick-dom" is about right, though I've certainly never heard a liberal/Democrat tell anyone they don't deserve to live here anymore; I believe that is a uniquely right-wing position, especially if you reside on just this side of the brown pigment and/or economic chart.

Also, Republicans do want to know what you know, but not from some noble position of intellectual curiosity. It's more about probing where you stand on issues of guns, god, Arabs, immigration, etc., in order to determine how "American" you really are. And as for the beer after work, that's par for the course. Hell, they probably already had a few during work!

Look, there are extremes on both ends, Democrats included, who annoy to no end with their attitudes and advocacy, but if Harmon is going to rely on stereotyping, at least get the traits correct first.

2 for 2. These two agree…Angie Harmon is full of it…oh wait, I forgot two letters in that last word.

Switch!

3. There has been a lot of talk lately about legalizing marijuana and taxing it as a way to help close the budget crisis in the nation. Legalizing pot, whether for budget purposes or not, is an idea long overdue.

Dino Parenti: FACT. Of all things to still keep illegal, a naturally growing crop that has far less detrimental side-effects than either cigarettes or alcohol—and which certainly has more positive derivatives in its medicinal usage—marijuana should be at the bottom of the priority list. It may not make as huge a dent on the deficit if legalized and taxed as many people would like to think, but it's a lot more than the nothing we're getting from keeping it illegal now, and which is actually costing us millions to "combat." People are dying and going to jail needlessly over something that is only offensive to bottom-line moral crusaders who use to light up themselves back in the day while zoning out to Jefferson Airplane albums, awaiting their draft deferments.

Brett Leggett: FACT. Dino said it all. Unless we're ready to outlaw tobacco and go back to the days of prohibition, keeping marijuana illegal makes absolutely no sense when evaluating its relative danger. The stigma long associated with marijuana has created an enormous cost to our society in both dollars and lives. From vice cops to overcrowded prisons, the resources spent on law enforcement alone are staggering. Seriously taking on this issue has long equaled political suicide in the minds of many politicians. Although the idea of legalizing and taxing marijuana is long overdue, I doubt the country is ready to cast off this bit of puritanical sentiment just yet.

3 for 3. Hmm…Krunchy and Ray gave me an 0 for 4 on the first week of my farewell tour. Is it possible Brett and Dino will send me off with a 4 for 4? What are the chances?

4. The Republican Party seems fractured amongst the religious wing, the neo-con, warmongering wing and the corporate-friendly wing. The "religious" wing of the party will win out.

Dino Parenti: FICTION. If the Republican Party is to have a resurgence, the "warmongering" wing, or the military-industrial wing of the party has the biggest chance of winning out (see Nixon, Reagan, Bush I & II, et al). As alluded to in the question itself, the party's ideology is fractured at this point, and opportunists and saber-rattlers from both extremes are climbing over each other and trying to hoist their flags the highest over the smolder, whether they represent the pro-life juntas or the no-tax or pro-gun or anti-gay marriage fronts.

But the "Neo-Con" contingent feeds on fear and the challenge of one's patriotic "feelings," and given a choice between dreading the ramifications of the afterlife versus the perception of one's peers in the here-and-now, the flesh almost always wins out in practice.

Not to mention, it generates a TON of money, which would put the corporate-friendly wing ahead of the religious wing as well in this contest. This is not to say that the extreme religious sect that affiliates itself with the party will cease to exist or be influential, but its piety seems to swell in direct proportion to the size of the almighty's guns and wallet.

Brett Leggett: FACT. Goldwater, Nixon, and Ford are all dead. All socially liberal by comparison, Republican moderates are now virtually extinct. Their party was hijacked by the religious right, which is now firmly entrenched. This isn't a matter of simply casting them off or marginalizing them within their own party. When the blanket of red covered only the deep south last November, it became clear that the religious right IS the party.

In 1992, Democrats sold their soul and shied away from liberalism in order to win back the White House. Since then, they have lobbied the center and by bringing "blue dogs" and more business-oriented Dems into the fold. The Dems have now firmly planted themselves on the moderate turf once occupied by fiscally conservative, socially moderate Republicans (keep in mind: despite what the GOP would have us believe, Obama is a moderate, not a true liberal).

So if the GOP is truly to make a push for reclaiming the center, they have a decades long battle ahead of them. Since the religious faction of the Republican party have always been the more vocal wing and have nowhere else to go, they will prevail in the immediate battle for the GOP's soul (or what's left of it).

Their party's future success depends on whether that fundamentalist base can get enough independents and undecideds to buy whatever they're selling that election cycle. This is a formula that worked for them before and will work for them again the next time Dems stumble, or if there's another tragedy for the fearmongers to take advantage of.

3 for 4. No perfect score to sail away on. But good thoughts on that last question from both participants.

Well, that wraps up Week 125 of F or F and it wraps up my time here at the zone. It's been a blast. See you all one last time next week when I come in as a participant for Jason Easley's "one-shot deal" F or F. Ciao!